When "Neighbour Rosicky" was published, it was greeted with generous enthusiasm. Henry Seidel Canby pointed out in the Saturday Review of Literature that "Cather's achievement . . . lies in her discovery and revelation of 'great souls' inside the commonplace human [being] called . . . Neighbour Rosicky." Clifton Fadiman, writing in the Nation, found "Neighbour Rosicky" a fine example of Cather's subtle craftsmanship. By contrast, Peter Quennell, writing for the New Statesman and Nation, found the story sentimental and unimpressive. Another interesting exception to the story's generally positive reception was Granville Hicks's essay "The Case against Willa Cather," which appeared in the English Journal in 1933. Because he supported the kind of literary realism that "examine[s] life as it is," Hicks found that the romantic and nostalgic aspects of Cather's work "isolated [her] from the social movements that were shaping the destiny of the nation." In writing about "Neighbour Rosicky" in...